Turn your Plain Photos into a Retro Film-Like Prints

Turn your Plain Photos into a Retro Film-Like Prints

Here?s a great Lightroom tutorial that?ll show you how to create an awesome red/blue cross-process photo with a retro round border! This tutorial will teach you how to apply a retro split-toning effect and manipulate the vignette settings to create a border. We also have a free Lightroom preset for you to download!

What you?ll be making

image
image

Step 1

For this tutorial, we?re going to start with the settings that?ll give the biggest effect and end it with the settings that give it the least effect ? this will help you visualize and understand the process easier.

Start by selecting your photo in Lightroom and going into the Develop module. Here?s the image that we?ll be using for this Lightroom tutorial.

image

Step 2

Start in the Split Toning area. We?re going to be applying a split toning effect that be the majority of this retro photo effect. In the highlights setting, set the Hue to 180 and Saturation to 100.

image

You?ll get a cyan-tinted photo like this.

image

Step 3

Next, go to the shadow settings and give it a red tint. You can do this by leaving the Hue at 0 and increasing the Saturation to 100.

image

Here?s what the image looks like with the red tint in the shadows! We have our retro color effect already ? next we?re going to add a border.

image

Step 4

Now we?re going to add a border to your photo. Lightroom doesn?t have an official area in the Develop module where you can create borders. Instead, we?ll use the Vignette settings to do this.

In the Post-Crop Vignetting settings, drag the slider for all of the 5 settings to the very left.

image

You?ll get a nice black border like this. This will give us a good area to start for creating our round border.

image

Step 5

With the black border created, we can now easily adjust the settings. Start with the Roundness setting. This will increase the size of the round corners. I?m going to give mine a very round corner like this ? so that it imitates the look of small prints.

image

Here?s what it looks like with the larger corner! As you can see, the larger corners also made the border thicker. We?ll correct this in the next step.

image

Step 6

To reduce the size of the border, adjust the Midpoint setting. As you increase the midpoint, the border size will decrease.

image
image

Step 7

Next, we?re going to adjust the Highlights settings. You really only need to adjust this setting very slightly ? in our case, by 2.

image

It?s a very subtle difference but if you look at the bottom of the border, you?ll see that the blown-out highlights are showing through the border.

image

Step 8

Next, increase the Feather setting slightly. We increased ours by 5 which softens the edge of the border just a tiny-bit. You don?t want to go overboard with this setting.

image

The Feather setting softens up the border slightly.

image

Step 9

Next, we?re going to add some grain so that your photo a more film-like look. Start by increasing all of the Grain settings to 100.

image

You?ll get a super-grainy image like this.

image

Now reduce the Amount setting until you get just the right amount of noise that you like.

image
image

Step 10

To finish off the image, we?re going to give it a soft glow reminiscence of low-quality lens. You can do this simply by reducing the Clarity setting.

image
image

Step 11

We?re done with the effect! Next, we?re going to create a Lightroom preset so that you can easily use this setting on your other photos. To do this, click on the + button in the Presets panel.

image

You?ll get a popup with a bunch of settings you can adjust. Start by giving your preset a name ? I?m calling mine ?Red/Blue Crossprocess?. Next, checkmark only the settings that you used (to avoid conflicts). For this photo effect, we used the Clarity, Split Toning, Post-Crop Vignetting, and Grain settings. Checkmark those items and uncheck the others then click Create.

image

Your preset will appear under your ?User Presets?.

image

Final Results

image
image

Download the Lightroom Preset

Here?s a free download of this Lightroom effect.

11 comments on “Turn your Plain Photos into a Retro Film-Like Prints”

Leave a Reply to Mathias Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Lightroom Tutorials
Copyright © 2000px Media Inc. All registered and non-registered trademarks are property of their respective owners